How is a "gun platform" defined?

[Spartan198]

I was looking at the R2B: Return to Base page and it lists numerous aircraft, helicopters, and ships as "gun platforms", even ones that don't carry any IMFDb-approved armament (like the B-2 stealth bomber) or don't appear to have any onboard weapons at all (a helicopter carrier).

Furthermore, the author just simply identifies the platform (e.g., an F-15 fighter) instead of identifying the actual gun on said gun platform.

Is there a defined standard here as to what constitutes a gun platform other than "it has a weapon on it"?

[commando552]

IMO, the "Gun Platform" section should list guns that do not meet the regular IMFDB standard for inclusion. For example, crew served artillery pieces, tank guns, aircraft cannons, stuff like that. The gun platform section is a relatively new thing that has started being used so there are no standards for it, but we should probably come up with some. For example, I think the sections should still be listed by the gun name rather than the vehicle (we are a weapons, not a vehicle database, and just throwing up a "Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter" entry with no information about what weapon it carries, if any, provides nothing).

This leads on to a bigger discussion, of if we are going to allow listing of gun/weapons platforms, should we make a page for them? If for no other reason than as a place to store a bit of information and pictured so that they can be found by other users, rather than uploading multiple images of the same weapon.

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by commando552

IMO, the "Gun Platform" section should list guns that do not meet the regular IMFDB standard for inclusion. For example, crew served artillery pieces, tank guns, aircraft cannons, stuff like that. The gun platform section is a relatively new thing that has started being used so there are no standards for it, but we should probably come up with some. For example, I think the sections should still be listed by the gun name rather than the vehicle (we are a weapons, not a vehicle database, and just throwing up a "Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter" entry with no information about what weapon it carries, if any, provides nothing).

This leads on to a bigger discussion, of if we are going to allow listing of gun/weapons platforms, should we make a page for them? If for no other reason than as a place to store a bit of information and pictured so that they can be found by other users, rather than uploading multiple images of the same weapon.

BTW, I have a bunch of photos I took at the 1st Cav and 4th ID museums in Fort Hood. I can upload them for users to use, rather than scouring for images across the internet.

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by commando552

The gun platform section is a relatively new thing that has started being used so there are no standards for it, but we should probably come up with some.

Actually it's not, it's a very old thing we kind of forget and then remembered again. It's primarily supposed to be, as far as I can tell, for identifying vehicles and listing their armament rather than listing all of it with separate gun entries, since obviously you're not going to find many tanks mounting non-standard guns.

I think what would be useful is an "other weapons" gallery page just to put all the images of weapons that don't qualify for their own pages in one place and avoid multiple uploads. Gun platforms should probably stick to live-action movies where they're physically present, unarmed vehicles should try to either get a screenshot with them in an ID in the caption or put them in trivia. Tanks you can usually handle by listing their coaxial weapon.

There's never going to be an internet movie artillery database, so if something appears and we know what it is, we should document it on the work's page. The rule is mainly about making gun pages for weapons which are unlikely to belong to a movie prop company; that would mean the biggest thing you could give a gun page to would probably be the 88mm FlaKs which some European armourers can get hold of.

[SPEMack618]

So basically, if you can identify the weapon system and the platform, then do so, so long as small arms and direct fire weapons are identified first.

[Spartan198]

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

So basically, if you can identify the weapon system and the platform, then do so

What I was bringing up was that the author had screencaps identifying platforms without any weapon systems, for example:



AFAIK, nothing carried by the above B-2 is in IMFDB's scope, since we don't deal with JDAMs and whatnot.



I don't see any weapon systems to identify on the ROKS Dokdo here.



I've been up close and personal with (and even inside the cockpits of) countless roadside displays like the F-5 and F-4 in this shot and never once have any of them had any actual armaments on them.

[funkychinaman]

I used to put those under "Trivia," or "Miscellanea"

[commando552]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

I don't see any weapon systems to identify on the ROKS Dokdo here.

The ROKS Dokdo has a Goalkeeper CIWS on the bow, which has a GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm cannon in it (same gun that is used on the A-10):

[Evil Tim]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

AFAIK, nothing carried by the above B-2 is in IMFDB's scope, since we don't deal with JDAMs and whatnot.

Yeah, that image you could easily put under a section for the F-15's M61 Vulcan and just say it's a B-2 Spirit in the caption. Picking shots that let you say something interesting about either the weapon itself or the other things in the shot is part of making a page, IMO.

The two display planes, yeah, they should be filed under trivia, the carrier you can see the CIWS on the bow so it should be listed under that.

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

I was looking at the R2B: Return to Base page and it lists numerous aircraft, helicopters, and ships as "gun platforms", even ones that don't carry any IMFDb-approved armament (like the B-2 stealth bomber) or don't appear to have any onboard weapons at all (a helicopter carrier).

Furthermore, the author just simply identifies the platform (e.g., an F-15 fighter) instead of identifying the actual gun on said gun platform.

Is there a defined standard here as to what constitutes a gun platform other than "it has a weapon on it"?

I thought he did ID the M61 in the F-15.